In particle physics, Antimatter is one of the most misunderstood concepts by the general public as well as researchers. One of the most well-known facts is that it would cost, theoretically, around $63 trillion to produce 1 g of it. But what exactly is it? How is it created? How can it revolutionise energy production and interstellar travel? And how is it connected to the mystery of the beginning of the universe? Let’s take a deep dive into this topic.
Antimatter is made up of antiparticles, which are just normal matter particles but with opposite electric charge and other quantum numbers; that is, an antiproton is negative, and a positron (an antielectron) is positive. But the mass remains the same. When antimatter comes into contact with normal matter, the particle and antiparticle annihilate each other and produce energy at nearly 100% efficiency of the equation E = mc^2, or in other words, convert nearly all of its mass into energy. 1 gram of antimatter reacting with 1 gram of matter releases about 180 trillion joules of energy, roughly equal to the energy released by a 43-kiloton nuclear explosion. Particle-antiparticle pairs are constantly created and destroyed through quantum fluctuations.
Antimatter was first discovered in 1932 when American physicist Carl Anderson observed the positron while studying cosmic rays. This was earlier predicted by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1928. Later in 1995, antihydrogen was first artificially ‘created’ by CERN.
Antimatter is created by colliding trillions of subatomic particles at 99.999% of the speed of light and then trapping them. Since it is very hard to preserve and store antimatter, the cost of producing even some particles is very high as only a few hundred antihydrogen atoms can be trapped at a time. CERN typically produces a few picograms of antimatter over many years.
Revolutionising energy production
Since matter-antimatter collisions produce energy at nearly 100% efficiency, they are theoretically the best source of energy we can produce, better than nuclear fission or fusion energy.
It is also theoretically highly valuable for spacecraft propulsion for interstellar travel, as it could provide much greater energy density than nuclear propulsion. But the underlying problem comes when it is seen from a practical approach. This is because producing and storing even a few antiparticles is currently extremely expensive.
Connection to the beginning of the universe
Some speculative theories suggest the universe may have originated from a quantum fluctuation. However, this is different from a matter-antimatter collision and is not the standard cosmological model. The mystery regarding this theory is why there is so little antimatter in the observable universe, as an equal number of matter and antimatter particles should be created. Even if the theory is speculative, a mysterious mirror universe(made entirely of antimatter) is being studied by the frontier of science.
Here we see, for the first time ever, the transport of unbonded protons across the CERN site, a big step towards portable #antimatter.
CERN’s Antimatter Factory is the only place in the world where scientists can store and study antiprotons. But scientists at the BASE experiment… pic.twitter.com/lFiNoFh6DC
One of the most recent discoveries is that antimatter obeys gravity like normal matter. The world’s first antimatter qubit was also made right before the transport test. On March 24 2026, CERN successfully was able to transport 92 antiprotons by road via a truck. The truck featured sophisticated equipment designed to reduce vibrations, which impact the storage of the particles. This is essential since the antimatter will now be able to be transported to highly advanced research labs for further research.
The future of antimatter research is very promising and filled with curiosity. It is now only a matter of time till we solve some mysteries surrounding it and open up a new field of physics. Another major mystery in modern physics is dark matter, which you can read about here.
